Natural Selection

White-rumped Sandpiper by Dario Nix used under Creative Commons licence

The Wyre around Skippool and Little Singleton has been well covered this year. I was fortunate enough to find the first American Wigeon on this part of the estuary in January. Whilst I was too busy to blog Jonny Scragg had the Fylde’s first Forster’s Tern in March. If there’s normally a time when Skippool can be expected to turn something up it’s normally the autumn, so several of us were hopeful as wader numbers began to build.

On Friday I was planning to go to Skippool after work when Tom Parkinson message me asking for opinions on what he thought was a White-rumped Sandpiper. The pictures were a bit distant but I agreed and said so. Further opinions were obtained and the news was put out.

I had to wait for Jane to get home before going so I thought there would be more people there when I got there than there were. This was no bad thing as Tom, Paul Ellis and Paul Slade were watching from one of the safer jetties and there wasn’t much room to manoeuvre about when we joined them. Anyway we soon saw the bird, and Paul E’s photomontage from the Fylde Bird Club website gives an idea of the experience.

White-rumped Sandpiper is a vagrant to our shores from North America. In a Lancashire context the Fylde had had the lion’s share of twelve records. This includes two together at the old Freckleton sewage farm in 1952 and again at Lea Marsh in 1964. More recently Skippool has been the place to see them with all of the last four in 2003, 2005, 2008 as mentioned above and now 2025.

A couple of rather bland thoughts arising from a pleasant evening of filthy twitching then dinner at Thornton Lodge with Jane. Firstly having seen the last one here where has seventeen years gone. Secondly even when it doesn’t feel like that much is happening and nothing is ever going to turn up, several pairs of eyes looking is always more productive. Even in the same week Avocets, Cattle Egret and Gadwall (good for the site) came and went on single days. It appears the sandpiper will be similarly brief with no sign for a few days.

Still plenty of time for something else this autumn. Even on quiet days the place has a special if somewhat ramshackle character.